PHYSICAL REVIEW SPECIAL TOPICS - PHYSICS EDUCATION RESEARCH 9, 010112 (2013)
Education majors’ expectations and reported experiences with inquiry-based physics:
Implications for student affect
Jon D. H. Gaffney*
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Eastern Kentucky University, 521 Lancaster Avenue, Richmond, Kentucky 40475, USA
(Received 20 September 2012; published 5 April 2013)
To address a perennial need to provide K-8 teachers with a solid foundation in science, there are many
physics content courses throughout the United States. One such course is Physics and Astronomy for
Teachers (PAT), which relies heavily on active-learning strategies. Although PAT is successful in teaching
physics content, students sometimes report dissatisfaction with the course. Such instances of poor affect
are worrisome because they may influence how teachers present science in their own classrooms.
Therefore, this study investigates students’ affect in terms of their pedagogical expectations and potential
personal learning outcomes with respect to PAT. Two sections of PAT, each containing approximately 40
students, were observed. Students in those sections were surveyed, and a sample were interviewed
(N ¼ 10). An analysis of the data in terms of an expectancy violation framework shows that while
students’ expectations regarding the hands-on and interactive components of PAT were met, they received
substantially fewer lectures, class discussions, and opportunities to make class presentations than they had
expected, even after they had been presented with the course syllabus and informed about the specific
nature of the course. Additionally, students expected PAT to be more directly linked with their future
teaching careers and therefore expected more opportunities to practice teaching science than they reported
receiving. This investigation serves as a case study to provide insight into why students are sometimes
frustrated and confused when first encountering active-learning classes, and it implies that instructors
should be cognizant of those feelings and devote resources toward explicit orientation that emphasizes the
purpose of the course and reasons behind their pedagogical choices.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.9.010112
PACS numbers: 01.40.Fk, 01.40.Di, 01.40.jc
I. INTRODUCTION
Education reform in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has been a
perennial need throughout the United States, called for
by numerous publications [1,2] and legislation [3]. One
major piece of that reform has been with respect to teacher
preparation: future teachers need to develop a fundamental
understanding of science, even when they plan on teaching
at pre–high school levels [4]. Within the discipline of
physics, students arrive in high school sorely underprepared [5], and we are therefore tasked with teaching
elementary and middle education majors physics while
using methods that dovetail with those that they will be
expected to use in the K-8 classroom. Such methods,
supported by publications such as How Students Learn
[6], are based in constructivist philosophy and encourage
students to be active investigators, exploring phenomena
and seeking explanations through a variety of activities.
This challenge of preparing teachers, while enhanced of
late by the pending publication of reformed science
*jon.gaffney@eku.edu
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and
the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
1554-9178=13=9(1)=010112(16)
standards [7], has been addressed in past decades by multiple curriculum developers and resulted in highly effective
curricula such as Physics by Inquiry [8] and Physics and
Everyday Thinking [9]. Specifically within the state of
Kentucky, motivated by earlier national science standards
[2] and legislation such as the Kentucky Education Reform
Act, faculty from both Education and Physics Departments
at the University of Kentucky (UK), with help from faculty
at neighboring institutions, developed Physics and
Astronomy for Teachers (PAT), drawing largely from
resources such as Physics by Inquiry and Workshop
Physics [10]. PAT was later adopted at multiple regional
universities through the Appalachian Math and Science
Partnership [11].
PAT quickly became a required course for elementary,
middle school, and special education majors at UK.
Studies demonstrated that PAT was effective at improving
understanding of physical science topics reflected in the
standards, such as astronomy [12] and light [13]. However,
despite these gains, PAT received mixed reviews from
students, and numerous students displayed signs of animosity toward the course including intimidation by the
subject, frustration from the difficulty of the course content, and confusion at the seeming irrelevance of PAT to
their future careers, all of which may stem from their lack
of familiarity with physical science. Moreover, the pedagogical activities that engaged students in PAT were fairly
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Published by the American Physical Society
JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
unique within the university; rarely in other classes were
students expected to develop their own understanding of a
concept and explain it to an instructor prior to that instructor first telling them precisely what they were expected to
learn.
Poor student affect in physics courses is especially
worrisome when those students will become teachers of
elementary and middle school students. If elementary
school teachers feel that physical science is not relevant,
or if they have a distaste for it, they will likely avoid
teaching it regardless of how well they understand it. As
a science education instructor said during an interview in
this study, ‘‘I can’t think of anything more important for an
elementary preservice teacher than to be excited about
teaching science. If you’re not excited about it, you
won’t teach it, and you’ll avoid everything about it.’’ In
other words, it will do us very little good to improve
science teachers’ science content knowledge if we do not
also foster their desire to teach science.
Therefore, we should strive to understand why some
students dislike courses like PAT. Doing so should generate
actionable implications for enhancing content courses for
preservice teachers to make them more likely to impact
K-8 students. While this study deals strictly with one such
content course, the intention is that it can be used as a case
study for other courses where, although students are learning physics, they are displaying frustration and otherwise
not ‘‘buying in’’ to the value and purpose of the course.
Specifically, the goal is that this study can point to ways
that instructors can mitigate those feelings of frustration
and confusion that preservice teachers sometimes develop,
thereby improving their attitudes toward science and
science teaching for when they begin teaching.
II. BACKGROUND
A. Affective research in physics education research
Preservice teachers are not the only population who have
shown frustration with research-based instructional strategies. Indeed, throughout many different levels of physics
instruction, successful implementation of those strategies
continues to be a challenge. A third of the faculty members
who reported trying a research-based instructional strategy
in introductory physics courses abandoned that strategy
[14]. One hypothesized reason for instructors dropping
the strategy after one attempt was directly related to student affect; specifically, it is possible that instructors are
dissuaded by complaints by students. Even within established programs, student complaints about pedagogically
reformed classes are a major problem. The implementation
of TEAL at MIT suffered low student evaluations [15], and
student surveys of students in SCALE-UP revealed dissatisfaction because some students felt they could have earned
the same grade with less work in a lecture class [16].
Within the physics education research community, much
of the investigation into student attitudes and affect have
their roots in epistemology, or the concept that students’
beliefs and expectations about physics, knowledge, and
learning affect their performance in the classroom and
beyond. Indeed, studies have found that epistemology is
an important factor in student learning [17,18], and that
explicit instruction about epistemology makes students
more expertlike in their understandings about how physics
is learned [19].
From epistemological roots have emerged studies about
student attitudes, including the development of multiple
surveys such as the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey
(MPEX) [20], Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for
Physical Science (EBAPS) [21], and most recently,
Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey
(CLASS) [22]. Generally speaking, such surveys compare
student epistemologies with experts; typical courses see a
slight decline or no change in student scores, while some
recent publications have demonstrated remarkable gains,
usually by explicitly teaching epistemology [23,24]. Of
note, one of those studies involved a physics content course
for teachers using the Physics and Everyday Thinking
curriculum [9]. Another study, which is particularly relevant considering it was done with the Physics by Inquiry
curriculum at multiple institutions, found positive epistemological shifts in each implementation, although there
was substantial variation between implementations [25].
The authors note that further work is yet required to isolate
the features of Physics by Inquiry that led to success. These
studies provide an interesting, but incomplete, background:
on the one hand, students in PAT may have naive epistemologies which could lead to dissonance with active learning. On the other hand, one might expect that because PAT
is largely based on the Physics by Inquiry curriculum,
those epistemologies should shift to become more expertlike over the semester. It remains unclear how such
epistemological stances should generate students’ affect
toward PAT.
The surveys listed above do not directly probe student
perceptions about the course itself, nor is there an
explicit link in the literature connecting student perceptions of their courses with epistemology. In fact, one
study that measured both student satisfaction with an
intervention and CLASS scores showed that although
students were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the intervention, which was a tutorial implementation, the class
showed no gain or loss on the CLASS as a whole [26].
The authors liken the tutorials to a ‘‘potent medicine’’
which need not be pleasurable to be effective. Indeed, a
hidden assumption about some instructional interventions
may be that they are useful in improving cognitive gains,
so they are worthwhile regardless of effects on student
affect. However, if we are interested in influencing the
behavior of future teachers, we ought to also attend to
students’ affect regarding the intervention or method of
instruction.
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
B. Expectancy violation
One useful lens for understanding how student affect in a
course like PAT develops is expectancy violation (EV)
[27,28], which is a framework from communication
research that builds upon the assumption that people
have certain expectations whenever they enter a given
situation. When someone experiences behavior that falls
outside the range of what they had expected, we call that a
violation [29]. This violation may be interpreted negatively, resulting in discomfort and dissatisfaction, or it
may be perceived positively, resulting in that person feeling especially pleased. The notion of framing [30] within
physics education research overlaps somewhat, as framing
carries similar assumptions and implies that what students
expect from a certain situation can influence how they
behave. Thus, there may be fruitful connections between
EV and framing research in terms of how expectations and
violations shape students’ epistemologies, which then
manifest as behaviors and attitudes. Even without fleshing
out such theoretical underpinnings, EV can be used in a
purely phenomenological sense to understand the relationship between violations and affect within an environment
such as a science classroom.
The EV framework has been used to examine communication in classrooms. We know, for example, that
students and instructors enter the classroom with different sets of expectations [31], and that those expectations
can impact behaviors and perceptions in the classroom
[32]. When students experience negative EV, it can
result in negative evaluations of the course; for example,
one study found that as the instructor violated expectations (for example, by showing anger in the classroom),
students were more dissatisfied with the instructor and
class [33].
Within the field of business and hospitality, a similar
framework has yielded similar results. The ‘‘expectancydisconfirmation paradigm’’ presents customer satisfaction
in terms of that customer’s expectations [34]. When a
customer experiences performance inferior to expectations, the customer is dissatisfied (and often complains);
when the customer experiences superior performance, that
customer reports satisfaction. This paradigm has been
repeatedly tested and used as the basis for multiple studies
on consumer behavior [35], and it has also been applied to
the classroom. In such applications, students take on the
role as customers, and the course is the service provided.
When students’ retroactively reported expectations about
the course are not met, they report dissatisfaction on the
end-of-semester evaluations [36]. A different study using
this paradigm highlighted the influence of individual classroom incidents on student satisfaction [37]. They add that
instructors should be able to increase students’ satisfaction
not by merely placating the students, but rather by convincing them of how the class structure supports learning
and articulating their role in that setting.
Violating expectations is not inherently a bad thing.
Indeed, doing so may provide an opportunity for students
to change their epistemologies about physics and learning.
However, such opportunities should be scaffolded to minimize dissatisfaction. One way to do this is to shift their
expectations about how they should be taught; for example,
as students become convinced that lecture is not always the
best way for them to learn, they may feel that lecture is
inappropriate behavior in certain situations and therefore
expect it less. A previous study of students’ expectations in
a pedagogically reformed course showed that pedagogical
expectations can be shifted very early in the semester when
class time and instructor effort are explicitly devoted
toward orienting the class [38].
Therefore, EV serves as a powerful framework for
uncovering potential reasons for students’ dissatisfaction
in PAT, which in turn should suggest ways to improve
orientation to the course so as to mitigate frustration and
confusion.
C. Research questions
This investigation regarding student affect in PAT
revolved around two major questions.
(1) How did the frequency of the pedagogical activities
engaged within PAT meet or violate students’
expectations? Specifically, what were students’ initial expectations about the frequencies of different
activities, what were students’ perceptions of the
actual experienced frequencies of those activities,
and what was the effect of orientation to the course
in terms of shifting expectations?
(2) What value did students attribute to potential outcomes in PAT? Additionally, how do their values for
those outcomes at the end of the course compare to
those at the beginning, how well did students feel
that PAT met those potential outcomes, and how
did those students’ values compare with those of
the instructors and those of science education
instructors?
III. STUDY DESIGN
A. Environment
The fall 2010 implementation of PAT was a three-credit
course that met for six hours each week in a laboratory
room with ample table work space, poor acoustics, and
little chalkboard space. Each of the two sections was filled
to capacity with 44 students, most of whom (over 80%)
were female.
Within PAT, students were assigned into groups ranging
from three to five students in size. Students performed
guided inquiry activities during most of the class time.
Many of these activities were selected from Physics by
Inquiry [8], some were based on Workshop Physics [10]
activities, and others were adaptations of UK’s own Online
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JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
Physics for Teachers [39], which is a collection of online
physical science content courses for in-service teachers.
Each instructor had the freedom to choose and modify
activities for his [40] course. For the two sections observed
in the fall of 2010, the instructor of section 1 chose mostly
activities from Online Physics for Teachers, whereas the
instructor of section 2 chose mainly Physics by Inquiry
activities. Both sections covered similar content: electric
circuits, magnetism, forces and motion, light and optics,
and astronomy. The major content difference was that the
instructor for section 1 also introduced heat at the expense
of some magnetism instruction.
Each course had one lead instructor and one teaching
assistant (TA). Additionally, I served as an assistant
instructor without grading responsibility in both sections,
so there were three instructors in each class. While students
followed instructions from worksheets or the Physics by
Inquiry textbook, the instructors answered student questions and performed ‘‘checks’’ with each small group of
students. Each group was checked about once per hour. At
these checks, students shared their progress and asked
questions, and the instructors clarified the material and
conducted Socratic-style discussions with the students.
Because of the design of the course, and reinforced by
the classroom space, minimal lecture occurred during
class. However, instructors occasionally addressed the
entire class to review content, discuss practical matters,
and introduce activities. Students were individually
assessed via graded homework, quizzes, and exams.
Instructors introduced the students to the course by
leading them through the syllabus and stressing that PAT
would be different than other science courses they had
taken. Students were briefed on how they would be learning within the class, and they began work on some activities for the first unit. This introduction will be referred to
throughout this paper as the students’ ‘‘orientation’’ to the
course.
B. Implementation
Surveys were given to both sections of students at the
beginning and at the end of the semester. Each survey
consisted of two parts. The first part was an adaptation of
the Pedagogical Expectancy Violation Assessment (PEVA)
[38], on which students indicated how often they expected
to experience each of 15 items detailing class-time activities such as ‘‘lecture,’’ ‘‘to present and explain my work to
the class,’’ or ‘‘to answer questions from my classmate
during class time.’’ On the survey at the start of the
semester, students indicated how frequently they expected
such an event would occur on a 7-point Likert scale at
two different times: when they first signed up for the
course and after orientation to the course. On the survey
at the end of the semester, students reported their experiences in the course. PEVA survey items are located in
Appendix B.
In the second part of each survey, students used a 7-point
Likert scale to rate the importance they attributed to each
of 12 items that indicated different possible outcomes they
could receive from the course such as ‘‘to learn science
content knowledge’’ and ‘‘to become excited about science.’’ At the end of the semester, students rated the same
items and were also asked to report how well they felt they
accomplished each item. This ‘‘outcomes’’ survey was
developed through multiple discussions about course
goals with several physics instructors who taught similar
courses nationwide. These survey items can be found in
Appendix C.
Each of the students enrolled in PAT in the fall of 2010
was given the opportunity to participate in this study.
Students responded at a fairly high rate at both the beginning (N ¼ 67 responses out of a population of 92 students)
and end (N ¼ 76 out of 88) of the semester. In section 1,
the first survey was given online and received a particularly
low response rate (N ¼ 19 out of 44), but the later survey
for that section was given during class and received more
responses (N ¼ 36 out of 44). Both surveys for section 2
were given during class and received high response rates
(N ¼ 48 out of 48, pre; N ¼ 40 out of 44, post).
To validate the students’ responses to the surveys,
students and instructors were both interviewed. A few
students participated in an interview at the beginning
(N ¼ 3), with more participating at the end (N ¼ 8) of
the semester. One student chose to participate at both
opportunities. During the interviews, students were asked
about their goals, what they expected to do and learn, and
(in the later interview) about their experiences in PAT.
Additionally, the students were asked to reflect on some
of the items from the survey to give further insight about
their interpretation of terms like ‘‘lecture.’’ The instructors
who were interviewed included the two lead instructors
during that semester, a former instructor who had a long
history of developing and teaching the course, and two
science education professors who taught the science methods course for preservice elementary and middle school
teachers in the College of Education. Each of those participants was asked about his or her vision, expectations, and
goals for the course and asked to discuss how they would
respond to items on the ‘‘possible outcomes’’ survey.
I also observed the course as an ancillary instructor to
complete the triangulation of the data. These observations
allowed me to both observe the affect of the students in real
time as well as provide instances to which I could refer
during interviews, which helped provide a clearer picture
of the survey results; see Sec. V.
C. Data analysis
Because of my role with the course, I asked students to
not reveal their identities on surveys. This anonymity came
with the trade-off that I could not pair data from the
two surveys and could only analyze it in the aggregate.
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
The data collected by the surveys were assumed to be
ordinal and not normally distributed. Therefore, following
the precedent in previous work [38], a Mann-Whitney
U-test [41], rather than a t-test, was used to check for
differences between distributions. When distributions
were different, Cliff’s delta () was calculated to determine
something akin to the effect size of the difference. ranges
from 1 to þ1; to achieve a score of 1, each entry in the
second data set is smaller than every entry in the first data
set [42]. More detail about is provided in Appendix A.
When analyzing the PEVA, it was necessary to compare
how often each pedagogical activity was ‘‘expected when
enrolling,’’ ‘‘expected after orientation to the course,’’ and
‘‘experienced.’’ Significant differences between distributions in students’ initially reported expectations and
ultimate experiences would indicate that an expectancy
violation occurred. The size of this violation was determined by the magnitude of , and the sign of indicated
the direction of the violation. Sometimes there was evidence of expectancy violation, but students’ expectations
after orientation to the course were not significantly different from their reported experiences. In such instances, the
orientation successfully brought students’ expectations for
the course in line with their eventual experiences. On the
other hand, when a significant difference persisted or
became more pronounced, that is evidence that the orientation failed to change the students’ expectations appropriately towards their eventual experiences.
Analysis of students’ responses to the outcomes portion
of the survey were done by inspection, using the full
frequency distributions as the primary indications for
students’ priorities for the listed possible outcomes, as
well as their perceptions of how well those outcomes
were achieved. The Mann-Whitney U-test was also used
to compare students’ responses to different items.
Because mean and standard error implicitly assume
interval data (that is, they assume that the step size between
each response is equal), they are not the best measure for
reporting central tendency. On the other hand, the median
provides a more appropriate measure of central tendency
at the expense of detail about the distribution itself.
Therefore, acknowledging the limitations of each measure,
mean, standard error, and median are reported for students’
responses to items on the surveys for illustration purposes.
The survey questions were validated during interviews
by asking both instructors and students how they interpreted items on the surveys. Both instructors and students
provided clarifications for the items, and those clarifications generally overlapped. For example, there was consistency on how the term ‘‘lecture’’ was interpreted;
students spoke about lecture in terms of the instructor
addressing the class and providing guidance for the activities, as well as explaining physical concepts. On the other
hand, disagreement arose among the students and instructors about what was meant by the phrase, ‘‘to solve difficult
problems’’; for that reason, it is unclear how students
interpreted that item and what their responses to that
item mean. Because only individual items are interpreted
here, such discrepancies mean only that individual items
resulting in possible confusion need to be ignored in the
analysis.
The responses to the surveys were validated with observations in the classrooms. For example, one striking difference between the sections was that section 2 required
the students to keep their own notebooks, while students in
section 1 received papers (worksheets) each day to fill out.
Accordingly, students in section 1 reported that they
‘‘wrote in their own journal’’ almost never (median ¼ 1),
while students in section 2 (median ¼ 7) did so all the
time. A similar but less dramatic effect was demonstrated
with lecture: the instructor in section 1 began each class
with a 15–20 minute review, while the instructor in
section 2 did not. Students reported substantially more
lecture in section 1 (median ¼ 4:5) than in section 2
(median ¼ 2).
Additionally, students were given the opportunity to list
alternative desired goals or outcomes in the course both
during interviews and on the surveys themselves. These
additional goals were largely about learning how to teach
or explain the concepts and getting a good grade. Learning
how to teach scientific concepts was not a goal of the
course, according to the instructors, and that dissonance
will be discussed at greater length in Sec. V.
Internal reliability, measured with Cronbach’s alpha,
was at acceptable levels for each set of questions (0.78,
0.72, and 0.80 for the PEVA; 0.86, 0.92, and 0.95 for the
‘‘outcomes’’ portions of the survey).
IV. RESULTS
A. Expectancy violation
Students’ reported expectations and experiences are presented in Tables I and II. Because students in the two
sections reported different experiences (and that difference
was verified by observation), each section of the course
was analyzed separately. Identifying the differences
between the sections was not a goal for this research
project, so details about their differences are not elaborated
here.
Multiple instances of expectancy violation were indicated from the data. For each instance, is displayed in
Table III. A negative value for indicates that students
report the activity occurring less frequently than students
expected; a positive value indicates that the activity
occurred more than they expected.
Students also reported how the orientation to the
course shifted their expectations about what was to
happen during the course. These shifted expectations
were compared to the students’ experiences at the end
of the semester to determine whether the orientation to
the course was successful at bridging that gap between
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JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
TABLE I. Students in section 1 reported how often they expected certain pedagogical activities in PAT when they initially enrolled
and again after orientation. They also reported how frequently they ultimately experienced those activities at the end of the semester.
A rating of seven means ‘‘very frequently.’’ Results are formatted as mean (standard error); median.
Expected frequency Expected frequency
when enrolling
after orientation
Activity within PAT
Lecture
Solving problems on my own during class
Solving problems in a group during class
Investigating how things work during class
Class-wide discussions of scientific concepts
Class-wide discussions of ways to teach science
Class-wide discussions of the nature of science
Answering questions from my instructors or TAs during class time
Answering questions from my classmates during class time
Asking questions about science of instructors or TAs during class time
Asking questions about science of my classmates during class time
Presenting and explaining my work to the class
Writing in my own journal detailing class events
Building my own understanding of concepts
Receiving detailed instructions for doing scientific investigations
the students’ initial expectations about the course and
what they reported experiencing. Expectations for the
frequency of a few activities were successfully shifted in
one or more sections of PAT; these activities are noted
in Table III with asterisks. However, even after orientation, students still held expectations that were substantially different from their ultimate experiences for some
activities, including class-wide discussions and presenting their work to the class. In those activities, the
introduction to the course was insufficient to change
the students’ expectations for PAT.
5.6
5.3
5.7
5.8
5.3
5.4
4.9
5.1
4.6
5.4
4.8
3.9
3.5
5.5
5.7
(0.32);
(0.23);
(0.24);
(0.26);
(0.27);
(0.28);
(0.30);
(0.34);
(0.34);
(0.23);
(0.26);
(0.36);
(0.37);
(0.30);
(0.29);
6
6
6
6
5
6
5
5
5
5
4
4
3
6
6
4.8
5.8
6.4
6.3
5.3
5.0
5.3
5.6
5.1
5.6
5.6
4.3
4.1
5.9
5.6
(0.47);
(0.29);
(0.20);
(0.19);
(0.21);
(0.32);
(0.23);
(0.20);
(0.21);
(0.24);
(0.23);
(0.38);
(0.43);
(0.21);
(0.38);
5
6
7
6
5.5
5
5
6
5
6
6
4
4.5
6
6
Experiences
4.2
5.6
6.8
6.7
4.3
3.1
3.8
5.6
5.0
5.4
5.1
2.6
2.9
5.4
5.6
(0.32); 4.5
(0.25); 6
(0.083); 7
(0.11); 7
(0.27); 4
(0.32); 3
(0.32); 4
(0.26); 6
(0.25); 5
(0.21); 5.5
(0.26); 5.5
(0.32); 2
(0.42); 1
(0.22); 6
(0.22); 6
B. Student outcomes
The students were asked to reflect on 12 outcomes they
could potentially achieve from taking PAT and rate how
important they thought those outcomes were to them personally, at both the start and the end of the semester. Both
sections of students responded similarly; there was no
significant difference between the two sections at either
the beginning or end of the semester. This finding supports
the assumption that students distributed themselves fairly
randomly between the two sections, and the data were
therefore combined for analysis.
TABLE II. Students in section 2 reported how often they expected certain pedagogical activities when they initially enrolled in PAT
and again after orientation. They also reported how frequently they ultimately experienced those activities at the end of the semester. A
rating of seven means ‘‘very frequently.’’ Results are formatted as mean (standard error); median.
Expected frequency
when enrolling
Activity within PAT
Lecture
Solving problems on my own during class
Solving problems in a group during class
Investigating how things work during class
Class-wide discussions of scientific concepts
Class-wide discussions of ways to teach science
Class-wide discussions of the nature of science
Answering questions from my instructors or TAs during class time
Answering questions from my classmates during class time
Asking questions about science of instructors or TAs during class time
Asking questions about science of my classmates during class time
Presenting and explaining my work to the class
Writing in my own journal detailing class events
Building my own understanding of concepts
Receiving detailed instructions for doing scientific investigations
010112-6
4.8
5.5
6.2
6.4
4.8
5.1
4.9
4.8
4.5
5.2
4.5
3.3
4.5
5.8
6.2
(0.20);
(0.16);
(0.12);
(0.12);
(0.20);
(0.17);
(0.19);
(0.19);
(0.21);
(0.16);
(0.21);
(0.20);
(0.24);
(0.15);
(0.15);
5
6
6
7
5
5
5
5
5
5
4.5
3.5
5
6
6
Expected frequency
after orientation
3.8
5.1
6.5
6.3
5.0
5.2
4.9
4.7
4.9
5.3
4.7
3.7
5.5
6.1
6.1
(0.27);
(0.24);
(0.10);
(0.13);
(0.17);
(0.16);
(0.18);
(0.16);
(0.18);
(0.19);
(0.22);
(0.22);
(0.24);
(0.12);
(0.13);
4
5.5
7
7
5
5
5
5
5
5.5
5
4
6
6
6
Experiences
2.2 (0.23); 2
5.5 (0.28); 6
6.6 (0.11); 7
6.4 (0.17); 7
2.6 (0.23); 2
2.2 (0.21); 2
2.5 (0.24); 2
5.7 (0.22); 6
5.0 (0.23); 5
4.8 (0.23); 5
4.7 (0.25); 5
1.6 (0.18); 1
6.0 (0.27); 7
5.4 (0.26); 6
4.5 (0.31); 5
EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
TABLE III. Cliff’s delta (, ranging from 1 to þ1, denoting effect size) for expectancy violations in PAT (n.s. indicates no
significant difference between expectations and experiences). A negative value for indicates that the item was experienced less than
expected. An asterisk denotes that although expectancy violation was present for those items, the orientation to the class shifted
students’ expectations such that there was no difference between their expectations after orientation and their reported experiences in
the course for those items.
Size of expectancy violation
Section 1
Section 2
Aspect of PAT
0:42
n.s.
0:58
0:51
0:33
0:64
0:35
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
0:48
0:30
n.s.
n.s.
Lecture
Solving problems on my own during class
Solving problems in a group during class
Investigating how things work during class
Class-wide discussions of scientific concepts
Class-wide discussions of ways to teach science
Class-wide discussions of the nature of science
Answering questions from my instructors or TAs during class time
Answering questions from my classmates during class time
Asking questions about science of instructors or TAs during class time
Asking questions about science of my classmates during class time
Presenting and explaining my work to the class
Writing in my own journal detailing class events
Building my own understanding of concepts
Receiving detailed instructions for doing scientific investigations
The overall distribution of responses did not change over
the course of the semester, except with respect to the items,
‘‘To appreciate the benefits of a hands-on, interactive
approach to teaching science,’’ ‘‘To learn how to solve
difficult problems,’’ and ‘‘To gain an appreciation of scientific views of the world.’’ The students rated each of
those items as less important at the end of the semester
compared to the start of the semester (p < 0:05). A more
detailed analysis reveals that the shifts only occurred in
0:79
n.s.
0:31
n.s.
0:78
0:86
0:76
0.41
n.s.
n.s.
n.s.
0:68
0:58
n.s.
0:54
section 2, with values of 0:34, 0:36, and 0:26,
respectively. There was apparently a relatively small but
significant shift in the value students placed on achieving
these particular outcomes, although as mentioned previously, it is unclear how students interpreted the phrase
‘‘difficult problems.’’ Nonetheless, these results suggest
that students’ goals in PAT remained generally static over
the course of the semester, although experiences in the
course have the potential to shift them slightly, as they
TABLE IV. Students reported how important they thought it would be to achieve certain possible outcomes in PAT [a rating of 7
means ‘‘very important (crucial)’’]. They also reported how well they achieved those particular outcomes in PAT, split by section
(a rating of 7 means ‘‘very successful’’). Results are formatted as mean (standard error); median. Outcomes noted with an asterisk
denote a significant difference (p < 0:05) between sections in terms of students’ reported achievement of that outcome.
Importance
Combined
Possible outcome for PAT
To learn science content knowledge (e.g., to learn about electricity)
To learn how to argue scientifically*
To appreciate the benefits of a hands-on, interactive approach
to teaching science*
To learn how to solve difficult problems*
To gain an appreciation of scientific views of the world*
To become empowered in everyday life*
To learn how to communicate as a scientist*
To understand how everybody can do science*
To learn how to perform scientific investigations
(i.e., scientific methodology)
To learn how to participate in a functional group
To become excited about science
To have science ‘‘demystified’’ (i.e., for science to be accessible)*
010112-7
Students’ reported degree
of achieving outcome
Section 1
Section 2
5.7 (0.13); 6
4.8 (0.16); 5
6.0 (0.14); 6
5.1 (0.25); 5
4.9 (0.22); 5
5.9 (0.17); 6
4.6 (0.26); 5
3.8 (0.25); 4
4.8 (0.32); 5
5.6
5.1
4.9
4.6
5.6
5.4
5.4
5.1
4.9
4.8
5.5
5.3
4.2
3.9
3.7
3.7
4.6
4.7
(0.15);
(0.14);
(0.18);
(0.19);
(0.17);
(0.17);
6
5
5
5
6
6
6.0 (0.15); 6
4.8 (0.21); 5
5.4 (0.18); 6
(0.22);
(0.23);
(0.17);
(0.25);
(0.21);
(0.24);
5.5
5
5
5
6
5
5.8 (0.19); 6
4.5 (0.29); 4.5
5.0 (0.22); 5
(0.25);
(0.24);
(0.26);
(0.24);
(0.24);
(0.26);
5
4
4
4
5
5
5.6 (0.26); 6
3.7 (0.30); 4
4.2 (0.27); 5
JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
did in section 2. However, we must be cautious about
drawing conclusions from these data, since the scores are
aggregate rather than paired by student.
Because of the small differences in the students’
responses, only the data from the end of the semester are
presented in Table IV. Frequency distributions for three
items (‘‘Learn science content knowledge,’’ ‘‘Learn how to
participate in a functional group,’’ and ‘‘Become excited
about science’’) are plotted in Figs. 1–3. Those three
potential outcomes are especially interesting because,
while the instructors and students both strongly valued
the importance of learning science content knowledge,
the students as a whole valued learning how to participate
in groups significantly more (p < 0:05) than learning content knowledge, even though instructors did not see that as
a primary function of PAT. In fact, one instructor suggested
that any outcome related to working in groups would be
due to coincidence rather than his intention.
On the other hand, instructors—especially the science
education instructors—considered the opportunity for students to become excited about science in PAT to be a top
priority, because teachers who are excited about science
are more likely to teach it; however, as can be seen from
Fig. 2, students were more neutral toward that possible
outcome. In fact, eight of the 76 respondents rated that
potential outcome ‘‘1’’ (very unimportant). Thus, looking
at these three distributions provides detail into how
students and instructors differ in terms of expected goals
for PAT.
Students also reported how well they felt they personally
achieved each of the 12 possible outcomes in PAT. Because
there was no reason to assume that students in each section
would perceive the same level of success in meeting these
outcomes, responses to those items were analyzed by
section (see Table IV). Overall, students reported that
FIG. 1 (color online). Students’ rating of how important it
would be for them to learn physics content as a result of PAT;
a rating of 7 means ‘‘very important (crucial).’’
FIG. 2 (color online). Students’ rating of how important it
would be for them to get excited about science as a result of
PAT; a rating of 7 means ‘‘very important (crucial).’’
PAT was moderately successful in helping them meet those
potential outcomes, although significant differences did
emerge between the sections, with students in section 1
claiming more success than those in section 2 on a few
items. Students in section 2 reported a greater degree of
expectancy violation, although investigation of a possible
connection between expectancy violation and how well
students achieved their goals for the course is beyond the
scope of this paper.
Students’ reported success with respect to the outcomes
listed above (‘‘Learn science content knowledge,’’ ‘‘Learn
how to participate in a functional group,’’ and ‘‘Become
excited about science’’) were not significantly different
FIG. 3 (color online). Students’ rating of how important it
would be for them to learn how to participate in a functional
group as a result of PAT; a rating of 7 means ‘‘very important
(crucial).’’
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
FIG. 4 (color online). Students’ rating of how successful they
were in learning physics content as a result of PAT; a rating of 7
means ‘‘very successful.’’
FIG. 6 (color online). Students’ rating of how successful they
were in learning how to participate in a functional group as a
result of PAT; a rating of 7 means ‘‘very successful.’’
between the two sections and were combined for analysis.
The class as a whole reported more success in learning how
to participate in a functional group (Fig. 6) than with either
learning physics content (Fig. 4; p < 0:001) or becoming
excited about science (Fig. 5; p < 0:001).
There was no item in the outcomes survey indicating the
possible outcome of learning to teach science, but students
frequently mentioned that goal in interviews and in the
free-response section of the surveys. For example, one
middle school major stated that, ‘‘Because it’s for teachers,
I expected something that would be more applicable to
middle school students. . . I was hoping that this would
definitely do something more useful in the classroom.’’
She did find that the class supported that outcome, stating
later that she did learn about how to teach, but indirectly:
‘‘I learned what I found more exciting and less exciting,
and what was frustrating, what didn’t work out necessarily
for me, and you know a lot of the things that we did we
could simplify them for middle school students.’’
Similarly, an elementary education major stated that she
‘‘expected more [learning on how to teach], just because
it’s an elementary education class. Most classes that are
geared towards elementary, you know, you actually teach a
lesson.’’ Variations on those responses were a recurring
theme: both elementary and middle school majors indicated that they had hoped to learn about teaching in PAT.
As a whole, the students reported more success in PAT
on outcomes that they valued more, as can be seen from
Table IV. A possible implication here is that if the students
understand and value the same goals as the instructor, they
will achieve more success in meeting those goals, which
the instructor could interpret as an appropriate implementation of the course. However, further studies would be
needed to determine the predictive nature of students’
perceptions about valuable goals in the course in terms of
what the students later accomplish in the course.
V. DISCUSSION
FIG. 5 (color online). Students’ rating of how successful they
were in getting excited about science as a result of PAT; a rating
of 7 means ‘‘very successful.’’
Outcomes that more directly related to students’ future
need to teach children were generally rated more highly
than those related to their individual development and
appreciation of science. Furthermore, students generally
expected this course, as an education requirement, to provide teaching skills and resources that they could use in
their own classrooms. In terms of the course’s pedagogy,
they expected a traditional science class with frequent
lecture and whole-class discussion components, rather
than a small-group, inquiry-based environment. Thus,
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JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
students found themselves in a course that they did
not expect, an experience likely to be uncomfortable.
Orientation to the course only provided minor support,
and students reported that they needed to ‘‘get into the
groove’’ of the course before their frustration was
alleviated.
A. Role of PAT
The instructors’ envisioned role of PAT, that of a rigorous science content course that provided instruction via the
same pedagogical style that the future teachers would
expect to use, was not apparent to students. Students
referenced PAT as an ‘‘education course,’’ presumably
because it was a requirement of the program, and while
they seemed to expect certain features of the course that
were appropriate, such as exposure to content, they also
expected aspects of the course that were not explicitly
intended, such as learning how to function in a group
setting or having discussions about how to teach science.
Students’ expectations about the role of PAT were probably not well formed, considering that during interviews
students usually implied that PAT was just another item
on a checklist: ‘‘I just wanted to be able to get through it,’’
‘‘I wanted to get a good grade,’’ or ‘‘I just took it because
I have to.’’ Some students did indicate an expectation that
PAT would help them become better science teachers. One
student stated that she ‘‘wanted to learn a lot of stuff that
I could use in my classroom. I wanted to be able to apply
the knowledge to the classroom.’’ Indeed, it became clear
through interviews and observations that many of the
students wanted to be able to apply what they learned in
PAT directly; in other words, that they would learn science
lessons they could turn around and use in the elementary or
middle school.
When asked in interviews how this course could be
made more directly applicable to their future careers, the
overwhelming response from the participants was to somehow integrate an opportunity for teaching. Because PAT is
required for education majors, students often indicated that
it should include a component where they learn how to
teach or practice teaching the material:
I would’ve liked to have maybe, and this sounds crazy,
but I would’ve liked to maybe teach in it a little bit. To
do, with one of our groups, to actually get up there and
teach the class as if we were teaching a class of our own.
Because I think that’s always helpful.
By working in groups, some students felt they got that
opportunity to teach, but it was teaching for the sake of
learning rather than teaching to rehearse behavior in their
classrooms:
I think working with other people, and learning from
them, instead of just having my own perspective, that
helped me a lot. And being able to teach others, because
when somebody else wouldn’t get it and I would,
explaining it to them helped me to remember it and
understand it more.
When the students did not receive an opportunity to
practice teaching, some of them became confused about
PAT being a required course, leading to ambivalence:
. . .[PAT] didn’t seem entirely disconnected, but it wasn’t
like a—I didn’t feel like it was a teacher’s class. . . Like,
sometimes when I wasn’t understanding I would still
feel like the student, and so I didn’t have to help
others. . . it might be more applicable if. . . someone
had to teach either the class or whatever, to be able to
practice that and learn it.
A middle school education major added that although
the course was well suited for her prospective grade level
(and her science specialization), it would not be appropriate for elementary majors:
I don’t feel like this class is beneficial for elementary
educators, because the elementary education curriculum is so different, you don’t really have time to use
what you know. . . I feel like the stuff we do is so
advanced that I struggle with it as a college student—
how are you going to teach that to a second grader? You
know, like you would have to completely change a lot of
things we’re doing, and I don’t know if that’s possible to
incorporate some kind of difference in what you are
learning into the class to maybe—not like dumb it
down, but like, you know what I mean?
The role of PAT was unclear to the students, and it was
therefore not surprising when their expectations for the
course were different from their experiences.
B. Pedagogy in PAT
With little understanding about how PAT was intended to
fit into their professional development, students’ initial
expectations were likely shaped by characteristics of
courses that they had previously taken: lecture, detailed
instructions, and class-wide discussions were highly
expected (see Tables I and II). In an interview early in
the semester, one student indicated that she ‘‘thought it was
going to be mostly lecture and then occasionally lab.’’
However, students also expected to work together, investigate how things work, and solve problems. One reason for
such expectations is that PAT had been around for many
years, and some students indicated that they had friends
who had previously taken the course: ‘‘Well, all of my
friends took it last semester, so I already knew what was
going to happen. We’d come in and do stuff and leave when
we were done.’’ In a postinterview, a different student who
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
had friends who previously took this course summarized
this dichotomy:
I guess I knew it was going to be hands-on. I definitely
thought there would be more lecture. I don’t know, I just
thought that since there was so much lab time, I felt like
they needed—I felt like there [were] going to be a lot
more lectures. I understand that we did the few minutes
in the beginning, but I still expected to be about half
lecture and half work.
In fact, students tended to appreciate the hands-on nature
of the course; one student added that ‘‘the hands-on stuff
really did help. Because, I mean, I’ve always known that
hands-on work is effective, but this course helped me to
understand it a little bit better.’’
Students both expected and experienced many hands-on
activities in PAT, and they valued those experiences. On the
other hand, they continued to expect lecture. This is understandable, as many of the students had never experienced a
course without a substantial lecture component before. It
also set them up for expectancy violations, since they
reported receiving few lectures and class-wide discussions,
perceptions that were confirmed through classroom observation. Students frequently reported wanting more lecture,
in terms of both content delivery and more guidance for
doing their in-class activities.
Because of the sharp difference between students’
expectations and their experiences for certain activities
but not others, students found themselves in a somewhat
different course than they had imagined, a potentially
jarring situation that resulted in mixed affect. Some students appreciated the value given to exploration: ‘‘one
good thing this class did was [that it was] very hands-on
[and] let me work with different things,’’ while others
indicated that lecture would have helped them understand
what was happening in the course better:
I do wish there had been more lecture in [PAT]. Because
at times we, I remember thinking like, we have no idea
what we are doing. Like, you know, for example today’s
lab, we were just kind of thrown into it, like ‘what?’ Like
we had no idea what to do.
There was a rich interplay between the students’ expectations for the role of the course and their expectations
for the pedagogy. For example, students reported fewer
opportunities to make presentations of their work than
they expected; if a goal of the course was to provide
teaching experience, one might expect students to make
such presentations, at least occasionally. Also, because
PAT was required before much exposure to education
courses or to K-8 observations, students likely had little
idea how they would be expected to teach in the classroom. Thus, when they found themselves learning
through methods that were more common in elementary
school than the university, students were uncomfortable
and had to learn to adapt.
C. Adapting to PAT
Interviews at the conclusion of the semester revealed
that, while initially large for some activities, the gap
between expectations and experiences was subject to
change. As the course progressed, some students acclimated to the environment. One student referred to
this process as ‘‘getting into the groove’’ of the course:
‘‘I had different expectations going in but then once I got in
and kind of got into the groove of it, [they] didn’t change
I guess.’’ Getting into the groove happened more quickly
for some students than others. One student said that,
‘‘There were no surprises as far as, you know, [the instructor] did exactly what he said he was going to do. I was
surprised that I liked it so much.’’ On the other hand, a
different student said that it ‘‘took a little while because
I wasn’t, I was like, oh this is the routine we are going to
get into. It took me a while to adapt to that.’’ As that
adjustment was happening she was uncomfortable:
It was a little unnerving. Because I wanted to get [the
answers] right, but you’re not, you don’t know everything, that’s why you are in the class. And so that’s—
yeah, I don’t like it when people look at my work and
assess it with me face-to-face. I don’t like being critiqued. So that was hard.
That student eventually adapted, resulting in a shift in
her mindset:
I got out of that being afraid of being wrong thing,
because it’s not like they smack you on the hand or
said, ‘bad,’ it was just, you know, you learned from it
and you changed. And I think that is where a lot of my
learning happened, is when I did get things wrong and
had to think, ‘no this isn’t how it’s done, this is how it’s
done.’
Because of her experience, she suggested the following
advice to future students:
Try to adapt to a different way of learning, get used to
getting a little bit outside of your comfort zone when it
comes to working with people, and getting your work
critiqued by teachers. Because that’s, I mean that’s not
something you get in a normal class.
As we see with this student, adjustment to the course was
difficult, and frustration was tangible in observations and
experiences with her during the transition to acceptance.
Some students make this transition quickly, while others
may never fully make it. The results from the PEVA
indicate that for the class as a whole, very little of that
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JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
transition was made during the first class meeting; instances of expectancy violation remained even after the
instructor, verbally and in the syllabus, explicitly told the
students what they should expect from the class. Therefore,
students were still expecting something other than they
experienced from the class and had to make the adjustment
on their own.
In conclusion, students exhibited dissatisfaction with
PAT when the class was not meeting their expectations,
both in terms of the ways they would be learning in the
class and in terms of the role that PAT was playing in their
professional development. As students adjusted to the
course, some of them began to get into the groove of the
course and feel more comfortable. However, this adjustment largely did not happen immediately. Possibly because
the orientation to the class was largely ineffective, students
continued to be confused and frustrated about certain
aspects of the course, including its purpose, lack of teaching preparation, and lack of time devoted to lecture and
whole-class discussions.
D. Implications
Multiple implications follow from this study, both for
the continued development of PAT and for course design
elsewhere.
1. Continued development of PAT
This physics content course for elementary education
majors has a very specific purpose in the eyes of the
instructors, but that role seems not to be fully understood
by the students. Incomplete communication about the role
of PAT, especially as the students are being oriented to the
course, is a likely culprit for confusion and dissatisfaction
with the course, since students do not initially understand
why they are required to take PAT. Effort should be made,
before students ever begin the course, to make the case for
its relevance in their preparation to become teachers.
The expectancy violation feedback produced by this
study is directly useful to instructors in PAT. For example,
consider class discussions, which students claimed to have
experienced less often than they expected. One simple
remedy for more closely aligning students’ experiences
with their expectations is by holding more class discussions to discuss recent in-class investigations and to share
students’ observations. Doing so would allow instructors to
meet some expectations of the students without dismissing
the importance of hands-on activities. To further meet
students’ expectations (in this case, of presenting work to
the class), students could be given the opportunity to lead
such discussions themselves.
Instead of lectures or class discussions, instructors in
PAT held conversations with individuals and groups during
checkpoints. While such discussions served a lecturelike
role by organizing and summarizing the work that was just
done, they were apparently not seen as an adequate
substitute for lecture from the student’s perspective.
Explicit, ongoing discussion about the process of
inquiry—especially why students’ learning depends on
using observed phenomena as the authority rather than
the instructor—is imperative to develop students’ metacognitive skills. Indeed, some studies have found that
explicitly teaching epistemology does affect attitudes and
behavior [23,24]. Furthermore, students need to be able to
express their frustration with the process in a safe and
productive way, and instructors should acknowledge that
frustration without compromising their goals.
Another expectation of students was that they would
learn how to teach the material that they were learning,
or that at least they would have an opportunity to practice
teaching. Instructors of PAT should continue to communicate PAT’s role as a physics content course that models
inquiry, rather than as a class where students will practice
teaching or develop content that they will be able to use
with their future students. Alternatively, PAT instructors
could work with science methods instructors to provide
opportunities within the class for students to practice
teaching the content they are learning.
It is also important for instructors to realize that students
in PAT appreciated the hands-on aspect of the course.
Students valued the opportunity to construct their own
knowledge, and they perceived it as valuable experience
to have gained. This information helps put their other
criticisms into perspective: PAT is largely successful at
accomplishing its mission, but certain tweaks may allow
students to view it more positively.
2. Course development elsewhere
If instructors expect to cultivate satisfied students who
appreciate a given course’s methods and purpose, they
should ensure that they meet students’ expectations and
goals. Thus, instructors need to both thoroughly communicate the process and purpose of the course as well as
understand students’ initial expectations regarding the
pedagogy, especially if that pedagogy is not traditional.
Orientation to the course should consist of more than
reading the syllabus aloud on the first day of class, especially when the course is as unique as PAT. Some examples
of ways to orient the course include engaging in a typical
activity for the course, explicitly linking such activities
with the underlying philosophical reasons for teaching
that way (especially in a course designed for teachers),
and soliciting and discussing rumors students have heard
about the course. This latter option provides students an
opportunity to negotiate what will happen in the course, as
well as for them to voice their fears in a safe atmosphere.
Orientation should be ongoing, and a consistent message
should be communicated throughout the semester.
Communicating expectations to students means more
than delivering expectations to students verbally or via
the syllabus. For courses like PAT, it means approaching
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
each class meeting—including the first one—with explicit
expectations for student behavior. A substantial portion of
their grade should come from expected behavior (such as
asking questions, investigating physical phenomena, and
actively sense making), and such behavior should be routinely praised. At the same time, instructors should be
patient, especially in a course that could be substantially
different from others the student has experienced. Within
PAT, that means fostering a safe environment and regularly
encouraging students to contribute their thoughts and ideas
as they strive to construct an understanding of physical
concepts. Sometimes that means something as simple as
having students make and display name tents or giving
gold stars to students who offer exceptionally well thoughtout, risky, or clever ideas.
E. Limitations
There are multiple limitations that are inherent in this
study. First, by being an active part of the classroom, my
observations naturally affected the class. I reacted to students’ frustration by actively seeking resolution, for example, by meeting with students individually to provide
study skills, rather than simply recording such occurrences.
However, being an instructor also provided me with powerful observations about what was happening ‘‘on ground
level’’ in the classroom and therefore supported insights
about how to alleviate frustration and improve the course.
Responses were collected from the surveys on paper
with one exception: the first time the survey was given to
section 1, it was online to prevent lost time in class.
However, the response rate was poor, which might have
introduced a selection bias into those results. To work
around that bias, sections were combined when possible
(since it was assumed that the students randomly selected
into one section or the other, a reasonable assumption
given that there were few significant differences in initial
responses between the sections). Additionally, all students
were given the opportunity to participate in an interview,
but only a few responded, meaning that there could have
been a bias in responses received there. Triangulation with
the surveys and observations helped minimize this potential effect.
Finally, one should be cautious generalizing from this
small data set: both sections were during the same semester
at the same university. It is likely that the culture at a
different university, or during a different semester, would
be substantially different. Therefore, this study should be
interpreted as a case study of how a largely successful
inquiry-based course continues to wrestle with issues of
student affect. As such it lends insights regarding overarching issues, such as the interplay between students’
expectations and experiences in the classroom and the
importance of understanding students’ perspectives in a
class, especially in one substantially unlike any other
course the students have experienced.
F. Conclusions
When students entered PAT, they held a range of expectations regarding both the pedagogy they would experience
and the role of the course in their education. As a whole,
students expected both lecture and hands-on activities in a
fairly standard lab-lecture design, even though many of the
students had friends who had previously taken PAT.
Students generally did not have a developed sense of the
purpose of the course, assuming both that it was an item to
check off their list and that it would somehow prepare them
to teach science. Students valued somewhat different outcomes than did instructors, indicating a disconnect that
likely led to misaligned expectations regarding the role
of the course.
Some of students’ initial expectations about the course,
such as the frequency with which they would interact with
each other and the instructors and the fact that the course
would contain much hands-on investigation, were similar
to their actual experiences. In those instances where
expectancy violation did not occur, students were generally very positive. However, students also expected far
more frequent lecture, whole-class discussions, and
opportunities to present and practice teaching than they
received, indicating an expectancy violation that seemingly led to confusion and frustration within the course.
Orientation to the course, which consisted mostly of the
instructor reviewing the syllabus and process of the
course, did not shift those expectations or alleviate those
areas of negative affect. Some frustration was alleviated
for students who acclimated to the course, a process that
was immediate for some and quite slow for others. A
suggestion for improving student affect in courses like
PAT would be to dedicate class time and instructor effort
to more thoroughly orienting students to the course by
providing explicit instruction on epistemology, reinforcing the purpose of the course, and explaining the reasons
behind pedagogical choices, both at the beginning of the
course and throughout the term.
A major effort of STEM reform is to improve the
preparation of middle and elementary school teachers, so
that they will teach more high quality science. Teachers
who are intimidated or frustrated by physics are likely to
avoid physical science topics in their classrooms. As such,
physics content courses must not only improve content
knowledge, but they must avoid generating negative affect
with respect to physics. This study suggests that such
negative affect arises within the classroom when students
are unsure of the role of the course within their professional
development (for example, treating it as an education
course rather than a science course) and when their expectations about how they will learn are violated (for example,
when there are fewer lectures or opportunities to present
their work to the class than they expect). When instructors
are cognizant of such violations, they can produce more
effective orientations to reduce that negative affect and
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JON D. H. GAFFNEY
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
thus be more successful in motivating future teachers to
teach science.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for
the faculty at the University of Kentucky for their willingness to participate in this study, as well as to the creators of
PAT, for many discussions about its genesis. I am also
appreciative of discussions with other faculty nationwide
who teach courses like PAT and helped in the creation of
the survey items. This manuscript was greatly enhanced
due to helpful comments from anonymous reviewers, for
whom I am thankful. This work was funded by the College
of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education, and the
College of Communication and Information at the
University of Kentucky.
APPENDIX A: CLIFF’S DELTA
Cliff’s delta () compares each entry in one data set to
each entry in another data set, and it produces a value
between 1 and þ1. A value of 1 means that each entry
in the second set was lower than each entry in the first set
[42]. When the samples are both fairly large and representative of the population, we assume that differences in
interpretation on Likert scales (for example, one participant’s ‘‘4’’ being equivalent to another participant’s ‘‘5’’)
will wash out in the ranked comparison of the arrays, while
true differences (for example, all of the participants selecting N on the first survey and N 1 on the second) will
persist. Therefore, while does not provide paired information, it does provide detailed information on how
responses compare to different prompts or to the same
prompt over time, even when the movement is small.
By providing a quantification of the difference between
the samples, we can determine a range of confidence that
the difference we see is real as opposed to statistical
fluctuation.
One alternative option for analyzing the data would
be to ‘‘bin’’ the data, for example, combining responses
of ‘‘somewhat frequently, frequently, and very frequently,’’ and comparing the number of those responses
to different prompts. While this method for analyzing
Likert-style survey data is valid in certain situations, it is
most appropriate when comparing students’ responses to
a binary choice. For example, in the CLASS [22],
student responses were compared to those of experts
and used to track whether student responses became
more or less expertlike. However, for the data from
the PEVA and the student outcomes survey in this study,
there is no expectation of a binary response or of the
value ‘‘4’’ (‘‘sometimes’’ or ‘‘neutral’’) having any
unique value. Rather, subtle movements of the distribution of responses are important as we seek to understand
how students’ expectations change and compare with
their experiences. Therefore, it is important to track
and consistently quantify the size of the difference
between distributions. The role of is clarified in the
following example.
The first pedagogical activity considered on the PEVA
is ‘‘lecture.’’ On the same survey, students provided two
responses about their expectations: how frequently they
had expected lecture when they enrolled, and then how
frequently they expected lecture after the orientation to
the class. There were 63 responses to the first question
(m ¼ 4:97, median ¼ 5) and 62 responses to the second
(m ¼ 4:02, median ¼ 4), resulting in 61 paired responses.
Of those 61 students, 30 responded that they expected
lecture less frequently than before orientation, 9 expected
it more, and 22 still expected it the same. Collapsing the
data shows a shift from 38=63 expecting lecture frequently when enrolling to 28=62 expecting lecture frequently after orientation. for this situation was 0:28,
with a 95% confidence interval from 0:08 to 0:46.
Any method of analyzing that data would yield the same
conclusion: students expected less lecture after they were
oriented to the class. However, was fairly small, and
caution should be taken to avoid overstating the effect
that binning the data might suggest.
The third item on the PEVA was ‘‘solving problems in
a group.’’ Again, there are results for expectations before
(N ¼ 64, m ¼ 6:06, median ¼ 6) and after orientation
(N ¼ 62, m ¼ 6:50, median ¼ 7), with 61 paired
responses. Of those 61 students, 7 expected it less frequently after orientation, 25 more, and 30 expected it the
same amount. Collapsing the data shows that 59=64
participants expected to solve problems in a group frequently when enrolling, and 60=62 expected to solve
problems in a group frequently after orientation. for
this situation was 0.28, with a 95% confidence interval
from 0.10 to 0.45. Here, collapsing the data loses all of
the subtlety of the shifts in responses because that shift
did not occur around the ‘‘sometimes’’ point (‘‘4’’).
Nonetheless, as hinted at by the means and medians, there
was clearly a one-sided shift in responses; 40% of the
students expected to solve problems in a group more
frequently than before. manages to capture that information successfully even though the analysis was done
with aggregate data rather than paired data.
Thus, successfully indicates some amount of individual student differences, even though it is an aggregate
analysis method rather than an ability to look at paired
data. Additionally, it does not overvalue shifts near the
neutral point, which is appropriate because there is nothing
special about that point in this study. The above analysis
provides a check on the reliability and usefulness of in
studies such as this, where it is important to understand not
only whether a shift occurred, but also its relative size. In
that way, provides a sort of ‘‘effect size’’ measure that
can be used to compare different distributions.
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EDUCATION MAJORS’ EXPECTATIONS AND . . .
PHYS. REV. ST PHYS. EDUC. RES. 9, 010112 (2013)
APPENDIX B: EXPECTANCY VIOLATION
SURVEY ITEMS
APPENDIX C: POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
SURVEY ITEMS
Fifteen items were included in the survey, prefaced with
the anchor, ‘‘Indicate how often you (expected to experience or experienced) the following during this semester’s
PAT, using the following scale’’ (ranging from 1, very
infrequently, to 7, very frequently):
(1) Lecture.
(2) Solving problems on my own during class.
(3) Solving problems in a group during class.
(4) Investigating how things work during class.
(5) Class-wide discussions of scientific concepts.
(6) Class-wide discussions of ways to teach science.
(7) Class-wide discussions of the nature of science.
(8) Answering questions from my instructors or TAs
during class time.
(9) Answering questions from my classmates during
class time.
(10) Asking questions about science of my instructors
or TAs during class time.
(11) Asking questions about science of my classmates
during class time.
(12) Presenting and explaining my work to the class.
(13) Writing in my own journal detailing class events.
(14) Building my own understanding of concepts.
(15) Receiving detailed instructions for doing scientific
investigations.
Twelve items were included in this survey. Students
indicated how important they believed these potential goals
were on a 7-point Likert scale, with 1 for items that were
‘‘very unimportant (trivial)’’ and 7 for items that were
‘‘very important (crucial)’’:
(1) To learn science content knowledge (e.g., to learn
about electricity).
(2) To learn how to argue scientifically.
(3) To appreciate the benefits of a hands-on, interactive
approach to teaching science.
(4) To learn how to solve difficult problems.
(5) To gain an appreciation of scientific views of the
world.
(6) To become empowered in everyday life.
(7) To learn how to communicate as a scientist.
(8) To understand how everybody can do science.
(9) To learn how to perform scientific investigations
(i.e., scientific methodology).
(10) To learn how to participate in a functional
group.
(11) To become excited about science.
(12) To have science ‘‘demystified’’ (i.e., for science to
be accessible).
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